That time fundamentalist Mormons almost got Big Bird killed.

Specifically, about how Morton Thiokol o-ring subcontractor HydraPak (originally Utah Tool & Die, later Western Precision, and now “NewEra Manufacturing” based in Cedar City, Utah), which made the o-rings of the Challenger that failed on 1986-01-28, killing the entire NASA crew, was started and run as a front operation for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) religious sect by its prophet Rulon Jeffs (father of currently imprisoned prophet Warren Jeffs) as Utah Tool & Die. For more details, read the book Prophet’s Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints by Sam Brower.

I like the idea presented in this video that just having Big Bird apart of the Challenger mission would have caused a chain reaction in upper management which would have stopped it from being a disaster.

Too soon

SMOSH try not to laugh bit:

https://youtu.be/FWDSLcH6ifU?is=P4s3huUNvjBPczdE

The Challenger exhaust trail leading up to an explosive split, punctuated by a cloud of yellow feathers